26 Dec 2007

Microsoft Expression Web Designer

Try out the new HTML Designer from non other than Microsoft. After Adobe’s Dreamweaver, I think this is the one of a kind HTML web designing tool which supports CSS and div based HTML design. Also it supports aspx pages and ascx controls. That means if you have your custom controls, it will show your custom control also at design time itself. It has powerful Intellisense and Hyperlinks for JavaScript function and CSS (as shown in the image here). That means if you click on a javascript function name inside the code with a CTRL key pressed, it will take you directly to the definition of that function. The function may be defined in a referenced .js file. Then to it will navigate to the correct location. Same applies with CSS class names. Also design view support for table based design is very nice. And you can apply styles in the designer itself. All the styles difined in the .css file referenced by your HTML/aspx page will be visible with its effects(the way it will look when rendred) in the Apply Styles Pane. I will rate Expression Web Designer better than Dreamweaver. So go and get the trial version right now here.